A Girl Scouts Troop for Homeless Girls Is Holding a Cookie Sale

New York City is home to a group of the bravest, most determined young women you’re likely to meet: Girl Scout Troop 6000, the members of which are all currently living in homeless shelters. For the first time ever, the troop is selling cookies. Their goal is to sell at least 6,000 boxes.

The troop has set up shop inside the Kellogg’s store in Union Square (the only troop that’s been permitted to do so). If you want to support their efforts—and you should—they’ll be selling cookies there until Friday, April 13, at 6 p.m.

"…When you talk to the girls you'll hear them say they belong to something, they have a sisterhood within the other Girl Scouts," Meredith Maskara of the Girl Scouts of Greater New York told ABC 7 News. "They talk to other girls who may be in their same situation who feel alone, and they feel like they have a stronger sense of community and belonging overall."

The café inside the Kellogg’s store has also launched six Girl Scout cookie-inspired cereal-based menu items that will be sold this week. All proceeds from those treats will go to Girl Scout Troop 6000.

Meetings for Troop 6000, which formed in 2017, are often held at different shelters around the city, given what a statement from the Girl Scouts calls their “high mobility.” Troop meetings are lead by women (sometimes the mothers of the troop members) who are also living in shelters.

Of course, every young woman, no matter her circumstances, deserves the chance at a healthy, happy life, and a place where she is valued and her ambitions are supported. However, given that the girls of Troop 6000 were born into a difficult situation that they can’t control and didn’t ask for, it’s incredibly touching to see the Girl Scouts and Kellogg’s giving them an extra helping hand, so that they can at least be on a level playing field with their compatriots in the other troops.